Labor Union Policy Case Study - H.R. 94

Guiding Question: What should be the goal of policies related to Labor Unions?

The Policy:

H. R. 94 A Bill to regulate the issuance of restraining orders and injunctions and to limit the meaning of “conspiracy” in certain cases. (modified/link to original)

No restraining order or injunction shall be made by any court of the United States in any case between an employer and an employee, or between employers and employees, or between employees, or between persons employed to labor and persons seeking employment as laborer, or between persons seeking employment as laborers or involving an argument over worker’s pay and working conditions, unless necessary to prevent irreparable damage to property.

Sec. 2. No agreement between two or more persons concerning the terms or conditions of employment of labor, or the assumption or creation of termination of any relation between employer and employee, or concerning any act or thing to be done or not to be done with reference to or involving or growing out of a labor dispute, shall be considered a conspiracy or other criminal offense or be punished or prosecuted as such unless the act or thing agreed to be done or not to be done would be illegal if done by a single individual.

Historical Context: Unions & Strikes

One of the most powerful tools the Unions you learned about in Labor Case Study #1 is having all the workers go on "Strike".

Strikes are protests where all the workers of a company agree to stop working. Strikes happened in America before Independence, but the number of strikes and the size of the strikes grew in the 19th century.

Gary B. Nash- Labor Unions, Strikes, and Injunctions

Between 1881 and 1905, there were 36,757 strikes. Over 6 million workers participated in those strikes. Industrialization changed working conditions, and as more workers entered factories, labor union activity spread. Unions organized 60% of the strikes between 1881 and 1905. Companies argued these Unions should be defined as conspiracies, making them illegal under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.

This is a list of the most significant strikes before H.R.94 was created

Railroad Strike of 1877- first major Strike after the Civil War. The Great Railroad Strike in 1877 involved over 100,000 workers, and stopped half of America’s railroads. Employees of two railroads went on strike after the company lowered wages. It became violent and the National Guard was called to break the strike. In the end 100 people were killed.

Haymarket Square (Chicago) Riot 1886- a demonstration to protest treatment of workers in the McCormick Harvester factory and treatment of protesters by the police ended in chaos when a bomb was thrown and 8 police officers were killed. even though there was no proof 8 anarchists were arrested and 4 were executed

Homestead (Pennsylvania) 1892 - Carnegie Steel Co. cut workers pay. Workers went on strike. The company brought in the Pinkerton Detectives to crush the Union and the strike. Fire was exchanged, a few Detectives were killed and the state militia came in. The Union decided to end the strike.

The Pullman Strike 1894- workers wages were cut in order to keep stockholders happy. Some workers lost their jobs. The American Railway Union led by Eugene Debs started a boycott. The railway companies asked the Government to become involved. President Cleveland sent in the troops only to make sure U.S. mail was delivered. Debs and other union leaders were put in jail.

Section #1: Why do some people believe the Government should be supportive of Unions?

in 1908, when Representative Robert L Henry, a Democrat from Texas, delivered a speech to Congress introducing Injunctions Bill, he said...

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Henry was the great-great-great-grandson of Patrick Henry (the Founding Father). His Biography

I want to discuss limiting the power of Federal judges in issuing injunctions. Are you ready to pass legislation, not only for the benefit of the laboring people who have demanded it, who have felt the sting of unjust government by injunction, but are you ready to give it to all the American people?

Gentlemen, will you listen to the voice of the people? If we not do not give it to them now, they will be given this relief in the future. I don't know if it will be the Republicans or the Democrats who give it to them, but it will happen.

There is no demand for radical legislation. The bill only requires people be given notice before injunctions are sent upon them.

I am not attacking the judges of this country. But legislation of this kind ought to be given the American people. Before anyone loses his property rights or his personal rights he ought at least to have notice from Federal tyrants. He ought to have the privilege of being heard in court.

Let us pass a simple law requiring notice before these injunctions can be issued by a Federal judge. Let us as Representatives of the people rob the Judges of the power of imprisoning good and innocent men with their midnight orders and injunctions without hearing the other side.

In 1900, Union leader Samuel Gompers, gave a statement to the Judiciary Committee regarding Bill on Labor Injunctions. In that statement he said,

(modified document)

Gompers was a Union Leader. He created the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and was the AFL’s President.

Injunctions are granted to employers during industrial disputes with the goal of crushing them. There is no reason for granting them against workmen. If men are legally striking, and a court issues an injunction forcing them to end the strike, their right to protest and unite to address a grievance, has been destroyed.

We insist that a man shall be tried by a jury of his peers if he is charged with an offense. We demand that in labor disputes between employers and employees injunctions should not be issued. There is no need for it. If a workman commits an offense while engaged in a trade dispute, he is accountable to the law the same as if there was no industrial trouble.

If labor is to possess any rights in the future, if the working people of our country expect to keep their constitutional liberties that were fought for by the fathers of our country, it is as important for us to maintain our right to unite in the organizations of labor as it is for man to breathe air.

We strongly urge you to pass this anti-injunction law, and thus restore to us the right of which we have been deprived by courts. We ask you to restore to us the right to do those things collectively we have the right to do alone.

We want this legislation, because the use of injunctions will increase unless you restore to the workers the rights we are entitled. We come to you, demanding the legislation that shall make the wrongs and injuries from which many of our men have suffered in the past impossible in the future.

Resolution of the Order of Railroad Telegraphers, 1899. the Railroad Telegrapher, 1899, (modified/link to original)

The Order of Railroad Telegraphers was a Union for telegraph workers.

We view with alarm the interference of Federal judicial authorities in local and national affairs, and denounce it as a violation of the Constitution of the United States and a crime against free institutions. We object to government by injunction as a new and highly dangerous form of oppression by which Federal judges, in contempt of the laws of the States and rights of citizens, become at once legislators, judges, and executors:

Therefore be it

Resolved, That the Order of Railroad Telegraphers do respectfully urge and pray that Congress may pass a law so as to restrict the Federal judges in cases of contempt. This law will make sure the spirit and letter of the Constitution of the United States shall be fully preserved to the people, and that the greatest liberty and freedom consistent with the common good of all shall be enjoyed, as was intended by our forefathers, and by them given to us, their descendants.

In 1883 Keppler & Schwarzmann published a cartoon by Friedrich Graetz titled "The tournament of today - a set-to between labor and monopoly".

Library of Congress explanation: Print shows a jousting tournament between an oversized knight riding horse-shaped armor labeled "Monopoly" over a locomotive, with a long plume labeled "Arrogance", and carrying a shield labeled "Corruption of the Legislature" and a lance labeled "Subsidized Press", and a barefoot man labeled "Labor" riding an emaciated horse labeled "Poverty", and carrying a sledgehammer labeled "Strike". On the left is seating "Reserved for Capitalists" where Cyrus W. Field, William H. Vanderbilt, John Roach, Jay Gould, and Russell Sage are sitting. On the right, behind the labor section, are telegraph lines flying monopoly banners that are labeled "Wall St., W.U.T. Co., [and] N.Y.C. RR".

In 1883, artist Bernhard Gillam drew a cartoon titled "Hopelessly bound to the stake" in Puck Magazine.

Library of Congress Summary:

Print shows a man labeled "Workman" tied to a stake labeled "Monopoly" and sitting on a flaming pile of logs with the faces of Jay Gould, William H. Vanderbilt, Russell Sage, Roscoe Conkling, Cyrus W. Field, Whitelaw Reid who breathes flames labeled "Monopoly Press", and Chauncey M. Depew who breathes flames labeled "Depew".

Bernard Gillam, The slave-market of to-day, Puck, 1884

Library of Congress Summary

Illustration shows trade union laborers, some in chains labeled "High Tariff" and "Tariff", and one standing on a block labeled "Trade Unions", being auctioned by a man labeled "Protectionist Statesman" to capitalists and manufacturers, among them are Cyrus W. Field and William H. Vanderbilt; in the background is a row of factories. A sign states "Quotations. Average wage for skilled workman $7 a Week or $359 a Year".

Section #2: Why do people think the Government should not support Unions?

In 1908, the Republication Representative from Maine, Charles E. Littlefield, gave a speech to Congress on Labor Injunctions. In his speech he said...

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Littlefield's biography

The injunction question goes to the foundation of our Constitutional system. Our government involves three independent powers — the executive, legislative, and judicial. Each power cannot interfere with the powers of the others. The Constitution gives the Judicial branch its power. The legislature can not take it. If they took away this power of the Court, all their other powers would be gone.

Under the Constitution, citizens can not be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. When a citizen’s property is threatened, restraining orders protect his property. Now the legislature wants to step in and declare that no person shall have his constitutional rights. This legislation takes the citizen’s property in violation of the Constitution.

For these two reasons I oppose this legislation: 1. the legislature has no power to limit the court’s rights and, 2. because it has no right to pass any legislation discriminating between classes.

Legislation should be based upon the principles of the equality of all before the law. The high and the low, the rich and the poor, the weak and the strong, the oppressor and the oppressed, the wage-earner and the wage-payer, friend and foe should all receive the same justice.

Judge Taft, Opinion in the case of Thomas v. Cincinnati, 1894 (modified/link to original)

After being Solicitor General for the United States for two years representing the United States Government in court Taft became a Federal Judge. The Thomas case was to decide if a Union leader who led a strike was guilty of Contempt of Court when he did not follow an injunction.

Encouraging employees of a receiver, who is operating a railroad under order of the court, to leave work and join an unlawful combination causing the railroad to shut down and lose business, is a contempt of court. The unlawful conspiracies are not protected by the Constitutional right of assembly and free speech.

The punishment for contempt is not an easy choice for a court to make, but courts have to punish those who do not obey their orders. If orders of the court are not obeyed, it will cause anarchy. The courts should have the power to punish contempts and that they should use it when their orders are defied. But they should only do it to make sure people follow the court’s orders. They should not use it to punish the crimes, that is the responsibility of a jury trial.

I have no right, and do not wish, to punish the defendant for the havoc which he and his associates have wrought to the business of this country and the suffering they have caused to innocent people. I can only give them a penalty which may cause people in the future to follow a court’s orders.

I do not think I would be doing my job as a judicial officer of the United States if I do not punish the defendant with imprisonment. Frank W. Phelan will be confined in the county jail for six months.

In 1904, cartoonist Samuel D. Ehrhart drew the cartoon titled “A dangerous brew” for Puck Magazine.

Library of Congress Summary: Illustration shows John Mitchell and Samuel Gompers, representing the United Mine Workers and the American Federation of Labor, as witches stirring a "dangerous brew" of labor violence in a cauldron labeled "Unionism" over flames labeled "Anti-Injunction Bill". Steam rising from the pot is filled with threatening human figures and the words "Boycott, Mob Violence, Intimidation, Dynamite-Persuasion, Riot, Lawlessness, Anarchy, Parkism, Graft, [and] Incendiary Press".

Thomas Nast, “What’s in a Name?”, Harper’s Weekly, 1886

Caption: What’s in a Name?

There is a great deal in his name, and a great responsibility in the way in which he guards it.

Summary of Thomas Nast’s “What’s in a Name?”

The cartoon shows Terence Powderly, the president of the Knights of Labor

(America's largest labor union). Terence Powderly was well known by the public.

He holds in his hand two “red-hot irons”. On the wall behind the irons is written “If the strike is not settled it might extend over all the railroads in the country, and it may extend to all the knights all over the country” Chairman Irons

On the other side of the wall is written “Arbitration instead of Strikes and Boycotts- Labor’s only chance for emancipation from monopoly lies in conservatism” - (Terence Powderly's signature is below the quote)

Thomas Nast, “Too Heavy a Load for the Trade-Unions,” Harper’s Weekly, 1886

The Caption below reads: 'Too heavy a load for the trade-Unions. The competent workman must support the incompetent.

Summary of Thomas Nast’s “Too Heavy a Load for the Trade-Unions,”

This cartoon was created after the Haymarket square riot. It depicts Union leaders as “agitators” that cause the strikes.

What were the results of the debate?

While H.R. 94 was debated in Congress it did not become law. It is still legal for judges to issue injunctions to interfere with a Union's planned activities.